I've been pretty thrilled with my HD+, too. I waited until there were solid reports of getting Google Play working, but to my surprise I was impressed with the stock experience. All my top priorities were met out-of-the-box, and on the 2.0.2 software I found the launcher, reader and browser quite responsive. I did install Play and there are apps that make great use of this screen (Sketchbook Pro is pretty fantabulous, though I'm still getting better results "finger painting" than using a stylus).

More than anything I'm using it as a comic reader, and while I'm sticking with Perfect Viewer so far, the stock reader does just fine with CBZs, so if I felt like doing a mass conversion I could go stock for that, too.

I've been pretty thrilled with my HD+, too. I waited until there were solid reports of getting Google Play working, but to my surprise I was impressed with the stock experience. All my top priorities were met out-of-the-box, and on the 2.0.2 software I found the launcher, reader and browser quite responsive. I did install Play and there are apps that make great use of this screen (Sketchbook Pro is pretty fantabulous, though I'm still getting better results "finger painting" than using a stylus).

More than anything I'm using it as a comic reader, and while I'm sticking with Perfect Viewer so far, the stock reader does just fine with CBZs, so if I felt like doing a mass conversion I could go stock for that, too.

Noticed you are active on Xda about root and Gapps on nook hd.

I am just looking to allow install of 3rd party apps to get amazon App Store. I assume I need Adb enabled using Andriod sdk.

Is there a you tube video you can point me to? It has been years going to a dos prompt and back if necessary. Also, I assume I need a sd card as well?

You really don't need the whole Android SDK just to use ADB. Leapinlar attached the files you'll need to his tips thread here; you'll want adb.rar and usb_driver_r04-windows-B&N.zip. He has instructions for setting up ADB, as well as links for troubleshooting. If his instructions aren't doing it for you, follow his link to B&N's own instructions, just remembering that you don't need to sign up as a developer or install the whole SDK.

Once ADB is working, you can grab someone0's batch file from here, which will do everything else for you.

You will not be using a SD card anywhere in the process, but there is a SD install of CyanogenMod 10 (customized Android Jellybean) available. I'll probably try it out in the next couple days.

I made a 16GB test card for CM10 last night, and it's pretty impressive. Chrome is super speedy. One issue I'm having that I haven't seen anyone else confirm is that sometimes CM10 doesn't notice when I change from portrait to landscape or vice versa, and it can take a good 10-12 seconds to rotate the screen. Other times it rotates just fine.

And um, yes CM10 comes with a file manager, but not a great one. I'd go ahead and install gapps along w/ CM10 and grab ES File Manager from Google Play.

One snag w/ setting up a card through Windows is that, unlike w/ the Nook Color cards you don't drop the ROM in /boot, but have to get it to the second partition somehow. If you've already set up ADB, the simplest way is probably to use the "adb push" command as verygreen describes.

Oh, yes and no. There's not a "file manager" app, but if you go to the Library and scroll down to My Files, it's pretty much a file manager. I believe there's also at least one free file manager in the app store.

Overall I am pretty pleased with both the Nook HD and Nook HD+. The sound quality is not nearly as good as the Kindle Fire HD - but the screen quality and speed and responsiveness are very good. I spend a lot of time on all of the Nook tablet devices because I am part of a development team and the new devices are solid.

The one thing I don't like on the two new HD devices are the new location and covers for the SD Cards. I think the covers are pretty flimsy and can see that they might easily be torn off and then what does the user do. They went from a nice, solid location and downgraded with the new SD covers.

I'd be interested to hear what other people think of the current app selection. I know we at 5ivedom have been busy scrambling trying to get most of our apps available for all of the Nook tablets, including the HD devices, but it seems that not as many companies are working on this as of yet.

The one thing I don't like on the two new HD devices are the new location and covers for the SD Cards. I think the covers are pretty flimsy and can see that they might easily be torn off and then what does the user do. They went from a nice, solid location and downgraded with the new SD covers.

We'll have to disagree on this point. The HD+ has perhaps the best memory card arrangement I've seen on any mobile device, and certainly preferable to the awkward in-the-Nook's-nook placement on the Color. It's made of flexible material similar to pretty much any device that bothers to cover an external card slot, but it opens easily and closes securely, so I'm not sure what kind of use scenario could lead to tearing it off. On the whole I think they did a great job of making it both accessible and secure.

Totally agree with you on the placement on the NC
Did the whole CM7 thing and the worst part of it was trying to get that tiny card into the slot - ended up on the floor several times and once bounced under the fridge
Vowed never to take it back out - turned out there never was a reason to